in over my head

The past few days I have had an overwhelming sense that I am in over my head with this whole parenting thing. I find myself feeling like I used to feel on the RARE occasions when I babysat in high school, where I kept thinking "Holy cow, why did anyone leave ME in charge here?!? I don't know what is going on. Thank God the real parents are coming home in 2 hours". Only now this feeling is followed by the realization that I am the real parent. No one is in charge of Jonathan more than me. And that is terrifying.

Between the walking, eating real food, (attempting) to switch to a sippy cup, and talking that is real communication Jonathan is seeming less like a baby and more like a toddler and the changes have happened FAST. He now walks more than he crawls, and turns up his nose at baby food. He can express (a lot of) his wants and throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way. I guess my brain and emotions are reeling to keep up with the changes and figure out how to make life work smoothly when dinner means more than popping open a jar of sweet potato goo and decisions feel less like well informed choices and more like wild guesses in the dark. I'm sure things will even out in a few weeks and we will have habits and patterns that work, but this week I am still in adjustment mode and it is hard on my poor brain. But at least he is still cute!